July 31, 2020

At the Friday Night Café...

IMG_8601

... you can write about anything you want.

ADDED: I had an oversized photograph up overnight, so the composition displayed was not what I intended. Replacing it with the proper size at 4:35 a.m. Saturday morning. I hope this composition is more pleasing!

44 comments:

Jon Ericson said...

Triggering

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Almost exactly 62 years ago, Walt Kelly imagined cancel culture.

Of course he believed the thought probes would come from government, which unfortunately makes Pogo's thoughts for today (7/31) a bit harder to implement.

Jon Ericson said...

Human interest stories from the Portland riots. lol.

Defining deviancy down

She's a believer

Entry Of The Gladiators - Julius Fucik

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Weird "White Privilege" Crapweasel commercial

Josephbleau said...

I run and walk all over Chicago, but the killings are getting too creepy. The murders are getting too close to the “safe” part of town. The city thinks it is good to put a little low income people in with the well off and that is making everyone vulnerable to violence. I am thinking of moving out to protect myself. The deal was that the police would protect you if you paid the high tax. No more. With Lightfoot you have no safety.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I feel worst for Herman Cain, then Drago.

Matthew Heintz said...

I'm so priveledged I'd let any p.o.c. suck my all-day lollipop!

Ken B said...

Almost 1500 covid deaths yesterday, third such day in a row.
Surpassed Yancey Ward's doubled-down-on estimate by more than a factor of 20.

Narr said...

So far things are pretty quiet in the Bluff City. The Black sheriff's and two white county commissioners' homes were littered with flyers and had paint poured on their driveways!

Narr
Usual nonsense demands

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned a statue of Father Damien in the halls of the U.S. Capitol building Thursday as a cultural relic of white supremacy.

Father Damien died of leprosy after spending his life serving others who had the disease.

https://t.co/WyP0d87LkT?amp=1

Like Heg, imagine the sense of unmitigated white privilege this man had!!

"No greater racism can a man have, that he lay down his life for another"

Mark said...

The other thread was late in moderation and may be thought dead, so reposting to this fresher one.

It is incredibly dehumanizing that we expect the father to have no feeling about whether his child will be aborted or not.

Actually, a large percentage of abortions -- if not a majority -- happen because the man demands it, and the woman goes along, often to great regret.

Darkisland said...

It's a Boo-Kaffe about video!

It's been a while since I spent any time in NYC and it will be a cold day in Hell before I go back again. Most anyone who went there in the 80s to the oughties will remember rather shambolic looking people selling books from tables on the sidewalk. Much as I like books and browsing books, they always seemed more of a nuisance than a service to me.

Amazon Prime recommended a doco called "Book Wars" which is about this business. It was made by a fellow who went broke and started doing it with his own collection just to feed himself. It features a lot of bookselers, some one step above homelessness who sell comics scavenged from trash bins. Others seem to work hard at it and make a reasonable living. Not Trump level wealth, of course. More like what they might make working comparable hours at a Wendys.

I watched it on the plane last Saturday flying to Charlotte and enjoyed it immensely.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Someone, Sara?, recommended Robert Daley's bio of Juan Trippe "An American Saga: Juan Trippe and the Pan Am Empire.

I am about 40% in and can't put it down. Trippe got into aviation, particularly passenger aviation very early on. He was flying paying passengers between Key West and Havana in the 20s. From that he built routes to South America as far south as Buenas Aires and Montivideo and across the Andes to Chile.

This at a time when airplanes carried 6-8 passengers, flew at about 100-125mph and had to refuel every 2-300 miles.

As I read it, I keep thinking of Trippe as Trumpian. Not sure why. Perhaps because they both had a vision early on and worked ceaselessly to achieve it. Perhaps because Trippe also failed a couple of times before finally becoming successful. It's probably a poor analogy but for whatever reason it keeps popping into my head.

I admire both.

I've not given up on the history of steam book but I have put it aside in favor of Trippe.

So what's everyone else reading?

John Henry

Darkisland said...

For no logical reason, I had a yen to watch Glen Miller play Chattanooga Choo Choo from the Sun Valley Serenade movie. Perhaps because I like the song? Perhaps because I like Glenn Miller? Perhaps because I like the fantastic dance routine by the Nicholas Brothers with Dorothy Dandridge.

In any event, I cued it up and got a Biden ad. The ad was clearly aimed at old folks. I hope to be an old folk some day but not for another 20-30 years. OK, not too painful.

After Miller, YT recommended Gracie Allen and Eleanor Powell in a terrific song and dance routine. Yeah, George Burn's Gracie Allen. Never realized she was a dancer. Pretty good, too, to keep up with Eleanor Powell. And I got another Biden commercial. Also aimed at old folks, different from the first.

This led me watch a video of Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing to Begin the Beguine. Guess what, yet another, different, Biden commercial aimed at old folks.

then I watched Artie Shaw's version Begin the Beguine which is one of my favorite big band pieces. And yet another Biden ad for the old folks.

I don't think I've seem a Biden ad on YouTube before. Now it is all I get.

As an experiment I just tried a Menudo video. No Biden, I got an ad for St Lucas hospital.

I'll be so glad when this election is over and Biden can shuffle off to Buffalo.

John Henry

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

public cervix announcement:

"Individuals with a cervix are now recommended to start cervical cancers screening at 25 and continue through age 65, with HPV testing every five years as the preferred method of testing, according to a new guideline released by the American Cancer Society" https://cnn.it/2XdboNl

identify as female-->
people with a vagina-->
individuals with a cervix--> <---(you are here)
those with a uterus-->
humans with fallopian tubes-->
carbon life-forms with ovaries

Darkisland said...

I've not seen much news about this and I would have thought it would be huge.

Kodak is betting big on Hydroxychloriquine. On Tuesday that announced they would spend $750,000,000 building a pretty major plant in Rochester NY. The govt is guaranteeing a loan for them.

At least something useful will be produced unlike the billions and billions that went straight down the shitter financing Solyndra, Tonopah and other solar power boondoggles.

I found a story in Forbes recommending not to invest in Kodak. Forbes says that the market for anti-malarial drugs is just not that big.

I find it great that 1) someone is betting big on HQL and 2) we are bringing drug manufacturing back to the US.

John Henry

StephenFearby said...

NY Post
July 31, 2020 | 10:39pm


New York Times union wants ‘sensitivity reads’ as part of editorial process

'A union representing some 1,200 New York Times employees is urging that articles be subjected to “sensitivity reads.”

The News Guild of New York said its reps recommended the extra layer of vetting during a meeting with the Grey Lady’s leadership earlier this month over how to make the paper “more diverse and equitable.”

The meeting came in response to a newsroom uproar over Republican Sen. Tom Cotton’s controversial op-ed.

“Diversity, inclusion and equity is not a static goal. It is an ongoing commitment that must be implemented in every facet of the company,” the Guild wrote in a memo...'

Cotton's Twitter reaction:

'...“‘Sensitivity reads’ for op-eds? And extra compensation for censoring?” Cotton asked.

“New @nytimes motto: All the news that’s fit to print and assessed for sensitivity by well-compensated woke censors,”...'

https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/new-york-times-union-wants-sensitivity-reads-as-part-of-editorial-process/

Ken B said...

Reports say Trump will ban TikTok.

He is also taking action over Uighurs.

So two thumbs up from me.

Anyone want to give odds which will get bigger play here?

Guildofcannonballs said...

We are gonna colonize the moon. And Mars. Just because we can; for kicks as it were.

iowan2 said...

Fauci and Redfield ruined the leftist narrative today. Democrat congress critter tried to get them to admit that the handling of the pandemic by the administration was mishandled. But after several leading questions, both said that the federal govt did everything conceivable that could have been done, was done. There is nothing in hindsight that could have been done different.

Ken B said...

“We could redefine journalist to someone who is authorized by the ACLU”
https://twitter.com/ByMikeBaker/status/1289408347565723650

wildswan said...

From June to the end of July Trump's polling numbers have risen by 12 points including 5 points in the last few days. The questions is what is driving these numbers. I believe, above all, it's Trump coming out in favor of opening the schools. The economy matters but the kids not getting educated is a killer issue. Just an opinion.
The legislature could require public health officials to turn in weekly reports explaining the rationale for school closing and any other measure such as universal mask wearing which has an industry wide job-killing effect. Public health regulations come under the Commerce clause and when such regulations affect commerce the legislature is entitled the require the authors of regulations to make weekly reports on how the regulation is achieving the four requirements of public health regulations: that the regulation is necessary, uses reasonable means, is proportional, and avoids harm. In other words the legislature could require public health to explain why in states in which the deaths from covid are less than those of flu or approximately equal in number the response is so different. Now in the beginning the threat 2.2 million deaths was overwhelming. But things are different now and yet public health officials are advising governors to have the same responses as in the beginning. But if the legislature required weekly reports explaining why the regulation is necessary, uses reasonable means, is proportional and avoids harm then public health officers and the governors they advise would not have the power to make random regulations which they acquired at the start of the covid epidemic.

Guildofcannonballs said...

This is a link always more pertinent than not.

Always. Think this through, this Official Althouse Blog Song.

My deeming doesn't make it so, the fact I chose to deem it such makes it so. And so it shall be.

You really lucked out. I was thinking more Steel Panther or The The.

Guildofcannonballs said...

All rights reserverd Smashing PUmpkins: https://www.metrolyrics.com/1979-lyrics-smashing-pumpkins.html ALL RIGHTS https://www.metrolyrics.com/1979-lyrics-smashing-pumpkins.html RESERVED

"Shakedown 1979
Cool kids never have the time
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meet
June bug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we'd never see an end to it allAnd I don't even care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know just where our bones will rest
To dust, I guess; forgotten and absorbed
To the earth below

Double cross the vacant and the bored
They're not sure just what we have in storeMorphine city slippin' dues down to see
That we don't even care as restless as we are
We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts
And poured cement, lamented and assuredTo the lights and towns below
Faster than the speed of sound
Faster than we thought we'd goBeneath the sound of hope
Justine never knew the rules
Hung down with the freaks and the ghouls
No apologies ever need be made
I know you better than you fake it to see
That we don't even care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know just where our bones will rest
To dust, I guess; forgotten and absorbed
To the earth below
The street heats the urgency of now

As you see there's no one around"

aall rights resEVERD
Writers & Publishers

from the album Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness · Copyright: Writer(s): William Corgan Lyrics Terms of Use

R C Belaire said...

Nice photo, but one nit-picking comment : a horizontal shoreline would be nice.

tim maguire said...

Mark said...
“It is incredibly dehumanizing that we expect the father to have no feeling about whether his child will be aborted or not.“

Actually, a large percentage of abortions -- if not a majority -- happen because the man demands it, and the woman goes along, often to great regret.


You start with “actually,” giving your reply the form of a correction or refutation, but, despite this being a clearly made up “fact,” far from correcting the original claim, it reinforces it.

tim in vermont said...

A “sensitivity read” is no doubt how CNN came up with the headline “Individuals with a cervix” needing screening for cervical cancer. I guess there is no such thing anymore as “female genital mutilation,” that seems to have dropped out of the news, since, you know, genital mutilation is now a religious rite of the woke and there is no such thing as this so-called ‘female’ that the ancients used to believe in.

tim in vermont said...

Remember that Bond movie where he was hunting down the ‘cervix agitator”? Until then I had assumed that Bond had been in possession of one at all times since puberty.

buwaya said...

"So what's everyone else reading?"

Barrie Pitt "The Crucible of War" Amazon Kindle $5.99 for all three volumes -
"Wavell's Command"
"Auchinleck's Command"
"Montgomery's Command"

Three volumes of his history of the British POV of WWII in North Africa.
Chatty, journalistic, full of anecdotes and especially of character thumbnails of the British players. Not exactly an exhaustive or analytical history, but absorbing and very entertaining.

Pitt (formerly of the SAS) was the editor in chief of the celebrated Purnells Illustrated History of the Second World War,in 8 volumes from the 1960's-70's, which was at the time my ultimate desire in books. Luckily for me my uncle had the full set. I still don't have it myself btw. Pitt was a very successful author and editor of popular military histories. A sort of Martin Gilbert or Anthony Beevor of his time.

I decided to look for it because TIK (the military history Youtuber) cites Pitt quite a lot in his truly excellent, extensive and lengthy (9 hours) deep dive video on Operation Crusader -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji7MZYB4dho

tim in vermont said...

I don’t get why the professional sports leagues feel that they need to take a moment to insult America before every game. Why not just drop the anthem as irrelevant? Maybe a “Let’s get ready to rumbulllll!” would be a better start.

tim in vermont said...

The New York Times Guild raised eyebrows on Friday for recommending "sensitivity reads" as part of the paper's publication process.

I don't get why anybody would pay for stuff that can’t get published until it has been vetted by a committee of political minders.

tim in vermont said...

Officials from the Department of Justice have officially filed a request with the courts asking for the removal of special protection for journalists in the ongoing riots in Portland, due to rioters often disguising themselves as journalists in order to commit violence, according to Politico. In a filing submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon, the Department of Justice asks Simon to consider overturning his previous temporary restraining order (TRO) issuing special protections for journalists, which, among other privileges, allowed journalists to remain in place even if the police force rioters back or attempt to disperse the crowds.

Who could have seen that coming? The fact that the journalists simply lie about what they see, a fact easily seen by watching all of the video that leaks out taken by demonstrators themselves, doesn’t even enter in to it.

rehajm said...

In surveys last week, this is what America told Rasmussen Reports:

- President Trump ended the polling week with a daily job approval of 50%.

- Voters think big city leaders in places like Portland and Seattle where violent protests have gone on for weeks are bringing the violence on themselves, with most reporters cheering on the protesters.
- Americans are sending more negative signals than positive ones over the decision by many professional sports organizations to promote the controversial Black Lives Matter movement.

- Voters remain skeptical of the job Congress is doing, with one-out-of-three pleased with the congressional representation they have.

- Likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden has lengthened his lead over President Trump in the latest Rasmussen Reports’ weekly White House Watch survey.

- The vast majority of Americans say their immediate family has escaped the coronavirus so far, but just over half say their state has started tightening up again because of the surge of new cases.


IOW- People are approving of Trump, rejecting most of the current platform of leftie culture...then rallying behind Joe Biden.

Okay then...

Annie said...

Arresting!
Well done.

Ann Althouse said...

"Nice photo, but one nit-picking comment : a horizontal shoreline would be nice."

It's horizontal. You're experiencing an optical illusion. I could de-horizontalize in an effort to correct the impression, but I don't do that.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gahrie said...

Actually, a large percentage of abortions -- if not a majority -- happen because the man demands it, and the woman goes along, often to great regret.

Complete and utter bullshit. In fact I assert that most of the time, the man never even knows it happened. Dispute me.

Michael K said...

I don't think I've seem a Biden ad on YouTube before. Now it is all I get.

I get them, too. And I really am an oldster.

Michael K said...

John Henry, I ordered the Pan Am book. I was booked on Pan Am 103 a few days after the bomb took down the flight over Lockerbie. They had not yet changed the flight number. As you would imagine, security was tight now that the horse was out of the barn. They still had no idea of how the bomb got on the plane.

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mockturtle said...

Buwaya: I would be interested to know your impressions of the commands of both Wavell and Auchinleck. Were they really incompetent? Or merely out of their depths?

My current reading: Just finishing my second reading of Carlyle's The French Revolution. On deck are de Staël's Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution and Mirabeau and the French Revolution by Warwick. Have you read any of those? Thoughts?

Sara D said...

Darkisland said...
Someone, Sara?, recommended Robert Daley's bio of Juan Trippe "An American Saga: Juan Trippe and the Pan Am Empire.

I am glad you are enjoying the book, I did too, when I read it in the eighties.Quite an adventure.My Pan Am adventure started in 1965.

buwaya said...

Wavell was an excellent proconsul who did a magnificent job in the Middle East with minimal resources. He could not prevent disasters in Greece and Crete because these were hopeless from the beginning. He was never given the airpower to supply, reinforce, or in the end even evacuate from these places without heavy loss.

The British government put his command, as he put it, in the position of trying to make bricks without straw.

In East Asia he was put in the same spot, or rather worse. The disaster had already started when he was given supreme command there, of entirely inadequate and unprepared forces. His worst actual mistake, probably, was retaining the army leadership in Malaya. But the collapse in Malaya was already far advanced when he showed up.

Auchinleck was himself a decent soldier. He took personal command at Alamein and did well with what he had when he was actually hands-on. But he was not a good manager of subordinates and he permitted inadequate officers (Norrie, etc.) to mess up (such as in Operation Crusader), permitted poor staff work, and worse, did not replace them when it was obvious that things had been mismanaged, and let them persist until they had gotten themselves into a genuine disaster.

mockturtle said...

Thank you, buwaya, for the analysis. One never gets the whole picture and usually when I read of those two gentlemen it reminded me Gilbert & Sullivan's Modern Major General.